


With Flour in your Hair and Ink Stain Freckles: The Roy/Hal Bakery AU

by damascened



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: AU, Bakery AU, Fluff, M/M, seriously tho fair warning it will rot your teeth with fluffiness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damascened/pseuds/damascened
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's Roy and there's Hal and there's a bakery and there's Winter in Thremedon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Flour in your Hair and Ink Stain Freckles: The Roy/Hal Bakery AU

It started with a chocolate éclair. Rather, it started with well-fitting robes that probably costs more than what Hal makes in a month, dark eyes, and a voice that reminds him of the molten chocolate used to drizzle the cakes. The man’s not unhandsome, even though he’s obviously a bit older than Hal—early thirties, maybe? Somehow this all comes together to create a rather pleasing whole and Hal, really, really doesn’t like where these thoughts are going.

The once-simple manoeuvre of getting the éclair into one of those little boxes embossed with _The Empirical_ on the top in a glossy sheen suddenly becomes rather difficult (it’s almost as if he hasn’t successfully done it dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times before), yet he manages, puts the five tournois in the till, and mentally congratulates himself for acting like a functioning human being for 150 seconds in a row.  

“Thank you,” and the man nods smartly before exciting the bakery, leaving a puff of the October morning chill in his wake.

Bastion fuck.

*

The second time is a few days later. Hal had almost forgotten the man entirely, but as soon as he walks in he remembers back with perfect clarity, like coming back to reality after a deep sleep. He has a certain quality about him—indefinable, inexplicable, but there’s something that grabs your attention and holds it. And Hal remembers him, he definitely remembers him.  

This time it’s a tartelette au citron, fragrant with lemon, the same creamy pale yellow of the sun outside, a stark contrast against the deep black of the box. He once again manages the herculean task of not making a fool of himself (honestly, he deserves some kind of medal. Perhaps he should ask Toverre to make one for him. On second thoughts, that would mean disclosing why he wants a medal and giving any kind of information to Toverre that isn’t strictly necessary is borderline suicidal, so perhaps not).

Hal spends the rest of his shift dreaming about people made of stardust who crumble at the touch, and the dangerous, beautiful mermaids he likes to believe live just beyond the harbour (among other, more ridiculous things). He remembers none of it by the time he’s back in sight of the university (probably just as well; the world really doesn’t need to know about every single silly little addition to his ridiculous fairytale).

He never forgets the man again.

*

The third time is late the next week and it’s raining, really raining, thunder and lightning and torrential downpour. Today he comes late afternoon, towards the end of Hal’s shift. The man is as attractive as ever, even with his hair sticking to his face, his clothes sodden (a futile umbrella by his side), and rivulets of water flowing onto the floor. He looks far less composed than Hal imagined someone like him could ever look—he definitely isn’t the sort of man accustomed to getting wet. Anyway, the bakery floor was already verging on a flood even with Toverre frantically trying to mop up after every customer, so it hardly makes any difference.

Almond cake. The one with the delicate sweet trickle of Hal doesn’t even know what, some sort of clear sugary liquid, over coating of thinly-sliced almonds as a topping. It’s a dessert cake—he must be entertaining. It’s only once he’s left the shop does Hal finally get an answer to who the man is:

“And that was the Margrave Royston.”

Usually he detests the times when Toverre takes to hiding around a corner and later divulging the identities of the many, many important and/or famous (or simply infamous, in the case of one Caius Greylace, who comes in every Tuesday and Thursday morning for a madeleine, of all things) customers that day, and being located so close to the Basquiat tends to result in an endless stream of gossip that Hal really doesn’t care much about but tries to pay attention to because Toverre isn’t trying to bore Hal, he truly finds it endlessly fascinating, and it’s not like Hal can really tell him to leave—he is the baker’s son and he does work here, after all. Besides which, there is a kind of beauty in listening to people talk about the subjects they love. Today, in this particular case, is perhaps the single time in the entire year he’s worked here that he’s been grateful for the information.

He spends the walk back to his room at the ‘versity (he truly cannot afford to waste money on a carriage, no matter how dire the weather) distracting himself with imagining how the Margrave’s evening is going (well, it’s rather useless thinking about how he no longer has any feeling left in his fingers, is it?) and pretending that it isn’t pathetic to spend so much time thinking about a man he doesn’t even know.

*

The weather gets even colder and truly abominable as the months pass, hail and sleet and dry winds whistling through the bare trees. The dorms become smoky though never warm enough. They become damp after the first rain of the season and somehow never quite dry out, perpetually a little mouldy. It can’t be healthy for Thom to spend so many hours in their little room studying, but the library is only open for so many hours a day and exams are a very real threat. (Besides, well—it’s none of Hal’s business how he makes the money to cover what the pitiful scholarship stripend does not, but he can make an educated guess. He’s happier when he knows where he is, that’s all.) Hal should really strive to spend more hours joining him, what with his scholarship being near-identical. Then it’s the winter holidays and it finally snows. Amid the fireworks and alcohol Hal shares an ill-advised New Year snog with Toverre, which both of them agree to never speak of again. (They’re mostly alright after, if slightly awkward around the edges.) Hal continues to work on his silly compilation of stories whenever he can (hiding them very carefully whenever Laure comes to visit, of course). And, somehow, without anyone quite working out how, as if no time has passed at all it’s a new term.     

But the Margrave Royston—Hal sees him maybe four or five times a week. He comes in throughout the winter, pink-cheeked but armed against the cold with strong warm gloves and scarves and boots and a smart, handsome coat. Oh, what money can buy; simple comfort. Hal tries not to envy him too much. Even when the sole of his left boot cracks straight in half and he has to fork out for a cheaper pair that will last him the rest of this winter with the money he was saving for the next. Everything about him reeks of money, his voice and his walk and his smooth, elegant fingers. Hal hates him for it, just a little (a lot). It would be so much easier if he wasn’t so intensely charismatic, if his eyes weren’t so incredibly intelligent, if Toverre didn’t idly gossip of how the rumour goes that he came to the city alone, virtually penniless, with a name nobody had heard of and he’d made himself into the figure you saw before you today. (It’s hard to hate the Margrave for his comforts if once upon a time his fingers were as cold as Hal’s own.) Mostly, Hal just wishes he’d stop going weak in the knees whenever the Margrave utters the word «framboise» or «citron»—or sometimes he even _smiles_ , or wishes Hal a good day. Surely, _surely_ , that can’t be allowed. No-one in Volstov could blame him for his idle, absurd little crush when someone like that keeps smiling at him.

Sometimes it’s bread: rye or dotted with grain, the crust softened with flour or coated in egg to make it shine. Sometimes it’s small fruit tarts, or pastries, or quiche. Very occasionally when Hal has an afternoon shift he will appear towards the evening, and at these times he will always ask for a cake of some kind. (Of course, he orders a gigantic Gâteau Forêt-noire for Yule.) He never asks for the same thing twice.

He’s prepared to admit he’s utterly pathetic, but sometimes he pretends the Margrave understands the significance of what he’s buying in mythological terms. He chooses the rye bread for the fallen folk hero Fabian of Avel, obviously. He clearly decides on rose cake that particular day for Cassandra from the poem _The Golden Spring_.

One day that’s nearly, but not quite, verging on spring, Hal unthinkingly asks him if the Pomegranate Lacrimosa is in honour of Persella, the tragic heroine of the Ancient Ramanthine myth. It’s a silly question but it hardly warrants the way his cheeks burn under his stupid freckles, and up to the tip of his ears. And embarrassment over the amount he’s blushing only makes him blush more. It’s _ridiculous_. The Margrave will probably imagine he has some kind of exotic skin disease now.

“Yes.” Says the Margrave Royston simply.    

*

“Oh,” says the Margrave a few days after the Persella incident, turning back from where he was nearly out the door with his—well, it’s really a savoury pastry, kind of, but not quite, only in a way Hal can’t remember (something to do with the glaze?). Oh, it doesn’t _matter_. He walks back towards the counter and reaches for something in an inside coat pocket. “This is for you.”

It’s a calling card, the words “Margrave Royston” elegantly embossed in flowing script. And around it, written in intimidatingly beautiful hand reads:

« _Raphaelisain_

_Ten o’clock, Thursday 26 th_

_If you would like._ »

 

“I—I....yes, I would. Very much.” Hal manages to splutter out eventually to the Margrave, who is still standing there, watching him. He breaks into a smile, which causes Hal to smile back at him, and it’s only when he’s gone that Hal even realises what he’s agreed to.

Bastion fucking hellfire.


End file.
